Entertainment

Pinterest Adds Place Pins for Better Travel Planning

Pinterest added a new type of pin called Place Pins Wednesday, enabling users to map out the locations of all the items they share on their pinboards.

For example, if a user pins a photo of a burger from a local restaurant in her neighborhood, she can also add the restaurant's location to a map on her board. With these locations, users can better create pinboards for trip planning and highlighting hotspots in their particular neighborhood, according to Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann.

Users can click "add a map" on a new board or in the settings of an existing board to start adding Place Pins. They can then add the pin's location through a Google-type search bar. Some pins from early Pinterest partners, such as Airbnb and OpenTable, already have the location included.

Users will also be able to share these pinboards easily with friends, Silbermann said. The company also announced a new send feature that lets users share their pinboards directly with others on the platform.

For example, a user could create a board of their favorite landmarks and restaurants in New York City, then share that board with a friend visiting the city for the first time.

This is the fourth major Pin-type announced by Pinterest this year. The company also added Recipe Pins that include ingredients and directions alongside a food photo, Product Pins that offer details like price and availability of the pinned item, and Article Pins for users sharing news stories on their pinboards.

Pinterest does not currently offer ads on the site outside of Promoted Pins, but Place Pins certainly have ad potential. Pin locations include plenty of information about retailers and restaurants, including addresses and phone numbers. It's reasonable to believe that they might also include promoted deals or exclusive offers in the future.

Pinterest announced the new pins during an event at the company's headquarters in San Francisco Wednesday night, and invited more than 150 users to attend.

The new pins and maps will be available to mobile users on iOS and Android at some point on Wednesday, Silbermann said.

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